Torque vs Unity

I'm wondering if anyone who has used both Torque and Unity might be able to compare them for me? I've been browsing over the Unity website for a bit, and it seems to be little more than a fun way to toss a bunch of models on the screen with physics and play with them.
It isolates you from the code, and while to a certain degree this is nice(You don't have to spend time programming something that you shouldn't have to) it's also bad because from what I've seen you CAN'T actually get at the meat of the game logic and change it.
As opposed to Torque where all the game logic is in script files where I can see and change them.

Go for Unity, there is nothing you can do with Torque without messing with the code, compiling it, and hoping that it works. You choice of modeling apps are limited to 3D Studio Max, Lightwave, Blender, and Milkshape, with Unity as far as I know, all apps can be used.

You are indeed missing something about Unity. There isn't preprogrammed game logic for you. There are some premade "behaviors" that come with Unity in the form of scripts that you can add to your game objects, and that is promised to become a lot more robust, but that's what you get for an "early adopter release", I guess.

I should mention also that you don't need to "code" anything for the physics to happen. You can just click a few buttons and have simulated physics using Novodex. It's really slick.

You script in Unity using JavaScript, Boo (Python like), or C#. It's easy. (Which is a relative point of view, I suppose)

What background do you have? Strickly artwork?

Also, your question might get a better answer at the OTEE forum http://www.otee.dk/forum/ since, well, all of the OTEE developers making Unity hang out there... as you might guess.

venz Wrote:It isolates you from the code, and while to a certain degree this is nice(You don't have to spend time programming something that you shouldn't have to) it's also bad because from what I've seen you CAN'T actually get at the meat of the game logic and change it.
As opposed to Torque where all the game logic is in script files where I can see and change them.

Maybe I'm missing something about Unity, any opinions?

I do believe you are ;-) You have full access to write your game logic. Unity was conceived to be able to do a racing game & an underwater flying sim. It ended up being used to do GooBall. Same engine. Different scripts. We're using it to do a strategy/RTS for our next large title.

One of the best things about the scripting in Unity is that we use Mono - This is not a home cooked scripting language, it is a fast, fast, fast system used to make large, complex programs. So you get full power.

May I advise you to download the trial? Unlike torque, we don't charge you to try it out ;-). The car game in there is just a few scripts.

venz Wrote:The Torque approach of "messing with the code and compiling it" doesn't bother me, incase I accidentally gave that impression =p

You don't have to recompile Torque every time you change something. Only the engine itself needs to be compiled. All the game logic is all done in scripts and even the world and GUI editors are built into the engine.

You only ever need to mess with TGE/TSE/T2D's C++ code if you need to extend something, which currently you can't do in Unity although from what I remember of Jon's IRC blurting (he tends to do that a lot about Unity ) then they're working on a plugin system, but how much control that gives you is beyond me. I just know that with Torque, the limits are purely what you're capable of and willing to do.

Nayr Wrote:I'd much rather mess with the code, seeing as I don't like JS/Python (or Boo)/C#. I like C (or C++ )

I could see why you'd prefer C perhaps, but ...
And what does disliking modern languages have to do with 'Messing with code'? I'd much rather 'mess with code' than 'fight the syntax'... (but I digress)

Unity wouldn't stop you from 'messing with the code' any more than Interface Builder would. I'm sure if you wanted to do things the hard way in Unity you could, just not sure why you'd want to. Then you could have time to 'mess with' the real code that does cool things instead of writing a vector math library for the 10,000th time.